Hi everybody, here’s the promised tutorial on how to turn a simple cube into something interesting using only a few modifiers in Blender. I used Blender 2.78c, but it should work in earlier versions with no problems. So let’s get started!

Step 1: Fire up Blender :-)

If you use the standard startup file, you’ll see a cube, a lamp and a camera. I won’t cover lighting and materials in this tutorial.

OK, first thing you need to do is to select the cube and then press [TAB] to enter Edit Mode. Then go to the Transform Panel and select “Subdivide”. Enter a value of 5 at “Number of Cuts”.

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Step 2: Displacement

So now it’s time to add our first modifier. Press [TAB] again to exit Edit Mode. With our subdivided cube still selected, go to the Properties Panel on the right and add a displacement modifier.

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Step 3: Edit Displacement Texture

Click on the little icon to the right of “New” inside Displacement modifier panel.

No you can edit the displacement texture. Select “Voroni” and change the size to 0.6. Your cube now starts to look weird.

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Step 4: Add two Wireframe modifiers

Add another modifier to the cube, this time choose wireframe. Set the thickness to 0.06.

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And another one, this time the thickness is set to 0.01

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Step 5: Add a Subdivision Surface (Subsurf) modifier

The last modifier we need is the Subsurf modifier. Add it and change the values for View to 2 and for Render to 3.

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Step 6: Apply Subsurf modifier

Click on “Apply” in the Subsurf modifier panel. Your cube will now look like this:

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Step 7: Adjust materials + lighting

Now you can set up your scene and render your cube. Try to experiment with the modifier settings to get different results. Also remember that in Blender the modifier stack order can change the effects dramatically.

Have fun!

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